Gushue rides hometown’s energy into final
Newfoundland skip will seek his first Brier title with an entire province behind him
ST. JOHN’S— Brad Gushue has played in the national men’s curling championship on 13 previous occasions and come up short each time.
The St. John’s skip is one win away from finally hoisting the Tim Hortons Brier tankard. And he’ll have a chance to do it on home ice to boot.
Gushue guided his Newfoundland and Labrador team to a 7-5 win over Manitoba’s Mike McEwen in the Page playoff 1-2 game on Friday evening. With the victory, he earned a direct berth into the championship game Sunday night.
“I really believe we’re ready,” Gushue said. “Whether we win or not I’m not sure, but it won’t be because we’re not ready.”
The St. John’s skip scored a deuce in the fourth end and added a steal of one in the seventh before McEwen came back with a takeout for a pair in the eighth.
Gushue peeled a Manitoba stone to score two in the ninth end. He held McEwen to a single in the 10th to the delight of a raucous sellout crowd at Mile One Centre.
“That was our best game all week,” Gushue said. “I thought we controlled it right from the get-go. We didn’t make any mistakes and we had been making a bunch all week. It was a good game with a lot of good shots.”
Canada’s Kevin Koe will take on Northern Ontario’s Brad Jacobs in the Page playoff 3-4 game Saturday afternoon.
The winner will play McEwen in the evening semifinal.
“I think this was a really good test for us to see how comfortable we are in this environment,” McEwen said. “I’ve never felt better in a big game than I have tonight.”
The playoff matchups weren’t finalized until the end of the last round-robin draw Friday morning.
After the morning’s final roundrobin draw, McEwen and Gushue ended up tied atop the standings with 9-2 records. McEwen got the top seed by virtue of defeating Gushue earlier this week.
Both Koe and Jacobs finished round-robin play at 8-3 but Jacobs was seeded fourth since he lost their head-to-head meeting.
Quebec’s Jean-Michel Menard and British Columbia’s John Morris (both 7-4) narrowly missed getting into tiebreaker games.
“I think we’ve had a good test leading into (the playoffs) with a few (teams) we’ve played against like Koe and Jacobs, those were playoff atmosphere kind of games,” Gushue said. “The crowd was into it and we were into it.
“So it’s going to be very similar to that, which is good for us because we’ve done it twice.”
Ontario’s Glenn Howard completed his record 17th Brier appearance with a 6-5 win over Jamie Koe of the Northwest Territories in the morning.
Howard, 54, received a standing ovation from the near-sellout crowd of 5,716 after the game.
“I was emotional there,” Howard, a four-time national and world champion, said. “It’s pretty cool to have people recognize (what) we’ve done. Who knows, that could have been my last Brier. I have no idea.
“I know I don’t have too many left so I relished every moment and that was pretty cool to get a standing ovation from a great crowd.”
The 3-4 loser and semifinal loser will play for bronze on Sunday.
The Brier champion will represent Canada at the men’s world championship April 1-9 in Edmonton.